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EJToday: Top Headlines

EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.

"Federal agents interviewed new witnesses this week in an ongoing investigation of government scientists that's been called 'polar bear-gate,' according to the scientists' lawyer."

"The controversial probe, now entering its third year, is looking into allegations of scientific misconduct related to a 2006 report by wildlife researchers Charles Monnett and Jeffrey Gleason, who described seeing dead polar bears floating in Arctic waters.

"This year's frenzy of oil and gas exploration in newly accessible Arctic waters could be the harbinger of even starker changes to come. If, as many scientists predict, currently inaccessible sea lanes across the top of the world become navigable in the coming decades, they could redraw global trading routes -- and perhaps geopolitics -- forever."

An uncommon and little-understood disease called Kawasaki disease may actually be spread by seasonal winds from Central Asia, new research strongly suggests. The sometimes fatal disease has been able to cross the Pacific to the United States.

"WASHINGTON — Federal food safety inspectors said a proposal by the Agriculture Department to expand a pilot program that allows private companies to take over the inspections at poultry plants could pose a health risk by allowing contaminated meat to reach customers.""Currently, the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors are stationed along the assembly lines in poultry plants and examine the birds for blemishes, feces or visible defects before they are processed."

"Eleven environmental organizations are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force it to better regulate toxic coal ash and citing recent groundwater contamination at 29 coal ash dump sites in 16 states, including two in Western Pennsylvania."

"As global warming triggers heavier rainfall and faster snowmelt in the Arctic, Inuit communities in Canada are reporting more cases of illness attributed to pathogens that have washed into surface water and groundwater, according to a new study."

"ALBUQUERQUE -- New Mexico, Arizona and more than two dozen other states could face increased threats to water supplies if they don't do more to plan for rising temperatures and changes in rain and snowfall patterns, according to an analysis released Thursday by the Natural Resources Defense Council."

"BOISE, Idaho -- It takes a lot to shock and sicken seasoned wildlife advocates, but the deliberate torture and shooting of a trapped wolf in northern Idaho by an employee of the U.S. Forest Service has. The incident in mid-March has triggered calls for both federal and state investigations leading to dismissal of the employee involved."

"Darren Collins doesn't know life without Lyme disease. He was just 11 months old when he came home from Wisconsin's Mauthe Lake Campground pasty white, lethargic and running a fever of 105. Darren's flu-like illness eventually subsided, but a host of other troubling Lyme-related symptoms -- stomachaches, irritability and concentration problems -- have since plagued the boy, now 10."

"TORONTO -- More than 130 large dams built, under construction, or proposed in western China's seismic hazard zones could trigger disasterous environmental consequences such as earthquakes and giant waves, finds a new report from the Canadian watchdog group Probe International."